


Can You Hear Me? Are You Listening?

by BigGlobbyTears



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Gen, THINKING A LOT ABOUT THE PODS VS THE HALLS, THINKING ABOUT JESSICA, Thinking, sad telephones, sibling fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:27:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27075700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BigGlobbyTears/pseuds/BigGlobbyTears
Summary: Game face on, little bro.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	Can You Hear Me? Are You Listening?

**Author's Note:**

> (Okay, I knoooow Jessica wasn’t pecked out of her shell -the same game- as when Sebastian was incinerated, but it’s called! Dramatic interpretation!)
> 
> I have so many blaseball feelings and idk where to put them, but here.  
> Also, a note that I don’t really align this Jessica to much of the agreed upon fan-lore, I think that’s cool but this gals gotta go her own way.
> 
> Please enjoy!

The first time my brother was engulfed in flames, I was too busy clawing my way to freedom to notice. The cawing of the birds, mixed with the ever present cheers and screams of the fans, made it hard to focus on the actual game that was still happening. It had been so dark within the peanut, and my eyes needed to adjust to the bright lights of whatever game we were playing. As I wiped the oil from my eyes, and tried not to swat away the birds that were feasting on my former prison, I scanned the arena.

Seb was there, out in the field, looking right at me. I looked at him. He tried to say something, but the shrieks of the birds were so loud, I could only see his mouth moving. He was smiling, smiling that way he always did, as if all of his emotions were sitting on his face, plain as day. I had always told him to fix that. 

“Keep your game face on.” 

I tried to call back, to throw my voice to him and bring him closer. I wanted to grab the bat, to hit it out of the park, whichever park, for whatever team, anything to give him an excuse to come running back to me. But my voice was hoarse from being quiet inside my waxy coffin. The only talking had happened inside my head.

But I should have been louder. I should have been able to tell Seb to move, to turn around. Because I saw it coming from behind them, bounding on all fours, eyes glowing and bare heart beating. I saw it and I could have told him to move.

Well, I don’t think I need to tell you what it looks like. It was happening to a lot of good players, they told me. They said, everybody’s lost someone, every team has taken a hit. It’s that Jaylen, they said through gritted teeth. Ever since she was brought back, the line-ups have been through hell. Sebastian Telephone was commemorated in an announcement and replaced, and the games continued.

I kept moving. I grieved, of course, but I never had much time for it. And who would I talk to about it? my teams kept changing, the faces around me kept shifting, and eventually, again, I got put back into the shell. But this time there was another voice in there. 

I couldn’t tell you what it told me. I know what it sounds like when someone needs you, and when they are desperate to get you. I knew they would only convince for as long as they could, and then they would berate, then force, then punish. What’s the difference between a god and a fan? Both want something. I’m used to being wanted.

When Seb and I were little, we used to play that silly telephone game. We would each hold a can, connected by a string, nothing special about it. It was fun because it didn’t work. If the string is long enough, no matter how loudly you talk, you can’t hear each other. We could say anything we wanted into it, and the other person would just sit there, still, can pressed against their ear. Listening without even knowing what was being said. There was something safe in that, in knowing that nothing you said would be used against you

We knew, even then, that we were not going to be on each other’s teams. We knew that friendship in Blaseball was for other people, not Telephones.

After I was first traded to the pies, I remember a moment, right before a game against the Steaks started. Seb was in the dugout, and he was staring at me. He just looked so sad, so obviously miserable, and he couldn’t even hide it. I stared back at him, stony, not giving anything away. Game face on, little bro. 

He took a breath. He held up his hand to his mouth. It was cupped, round and open, as if he were holding something. Without looking away, I cupped my hand to my ear. I listened. All I heard was the echoing ocean sound of my own blood pumping in my ear.

I could hear the same heartbeat echo deep inside the shell. Was it smaller this time? Darker? Or was I smaller, darker, more wounded than the Jessica that had clawed her way out of the last shell? I’d like to think that, if I wasn’t so hurt, if I was still ready to fight, it wouldn’t have been so easy to play again.

I’m not proud of joining the Pods. But was it really joining? Or was I ground up and mixed in, placed into a role I knew so, so well. I let myself be bad. I let myself be powerful. It gave me something to cover up with. It let me put my game face back on.

The first person I saw way Jaylen, pitching me her poisonous ball. But she’s changed now, I heard them whispering in the stands. She’s working to undo the hurt. Doesn’t matter, I thought, as I swung my bat to smash her away. It doesn’t matter who is good, who is bad, there’s no glory other than winning. 

And then, I went back in. I rested, I waited. Another week, another game. They’d be ready for me, I thought. Waiting to see their star. I was going to fight and win again.

I wasn’t planning to ever see him again. I don’t know if he had either. But things never go as planned in Blaseball, I should know that by now. 

I saw him across the field, but I could not run to him. I couldn’t bring him home. He saw me. His face told me that he didn’t like the side I was on. I didn’t want to see that look on his face, it felt like acid on my now cracked and hardened skin. I opened my mouth, and I did the one thing I hadn’t tried yet: I screamed.

“ _ SEB!! BE CAREFUL!! I MISS YOU!! I DON’T WANT TO DO THIS ANYMORE!! DON’T LEAVE ME FOREVER!!” _

The second time my brother was engulfed in flames, I couldn’t stop it. The second time my brother was engulfed in flames, it was probably my fault. The second time my brother was engulfed in flames, I’m hoping that he heard me.


End file.
